Chapter 15
Tiny, electric waves of shock rippled through Olivia, sudden lust licking quick at their wake.
The instant she’d set foot in these rooms, finding Lord St. Alban wrapped in nothing but a length of cotton, she’d known how this day would end. After all, wasn’t this what she’d come for?
Except she hadn’t expected it to feel so immediate, so real, yet so fantastical. As if she’d been granted permission to conflate reality with this morning’s dream.
She closed her eyes and sank into his long, hard body with all the resistance of a wildflower swaying to the uncertain rhythm of a summer breeze. Her fingers reached up over her shoulder, seeking out the back of his head, drawing his lips to the crook of her neck, to the exact spot his phantom lips had touched this morning in her dream. An exhalation of his warm breath skittered across her skin, and her nipples tightened into hard buds of anticipation.
Would his lips never touch her?
A soft groan vibrated in her ear, and, at last, his lips met her neck as his hands reached around her waist, his scent intoxicating her with its hint of the exotic and unknown. She was irrevocably lost to the spell of this room. And this man.
It wasn’t enough to feel him; she would see him. Her lips longed to make contact with his. She found his hands and loosened his grip enough for her to turn in his arms. Facing him, she braved the moment, inhaled, and met his eyes.
She didn’t need confirmation of his desire. That was pressed against her. She needed to know that she wasn’t the only one lost to this insanity between them.
He reached up and tucked an errant lock of hair behind her ear, the gesture intimate and tender. The sort of gesture that could undo her. He was giving her time . . . time to change her mind.
Well, that wouldn’t do.
She lifted to the very tips of her toes, and still her lips didn’t reach his. A smile, knowing and sensuous, curled about his mouth. “This is madness.”
The words whispered across her lips, the promise within them raising goose flesh and emboldening her to say, “Not nearly mad enough.”
That knowing, sensuous smile firmed with intent as his head canted to the side and golden lashes lowered to brush against high, angled cheekbones. He pressed forward and touched his tongue to the upturned “O” of her lips, soft, slippery, delicious.
How she wanted to take him in. How she wanted him to let her.
At last, his lips touched hers, a fleeting, tender brush. So tender that she wondered for a wild moment if the passion she’d felt was all her own wishful thinking. Then, in the way a levee will break from too much pressure built up behind it, his kiss deepened, and his fingers tightened about her waist, drawing her body into the long length of his, crushing her into him. A heady, breathless feeling swelled within her. She felt . . . Claimed.
Instinct, sudden and animalistic, took over as her greedy fingers snaked inside his shirt and brushed across the expanse of his flat stomach. On a wave of audacity, she found the laces of his trousers and made short work of them. Hot, rigid flesh met her hand, and desire streaked through her as she slid her fingers along the velvet column of his shaft.
A wild, unfettered groan erupted from him, breaking their kiss. His lashes flickered open, and his serious gaze pierced her. “Again,” he demanded.
She tightened her fingers around him and again stroked him, up and down his length. Wordlessly, he gathered up the folds of her skirts, handful by linen handful, cool air caressing exposed calves . . . thighs . . . quim . . . A ragged rumble escaped him. “Have you any idea how exquisite is your sweet, wet slit?”
She gasped at the vulgarity of his words. At the ache they provoked along her vulgar, wet slit. He pressed forward, the hot, insistent length of him grazing her, his lips brushing against her ear. “What do you want?”
A heartbeat later, she spoke the one word that could propel them into a realm she understood only at its most rudimentary level. “This.”
He fell to his knees before her as if in worship, and she transformed into a being created purely for lust. His tongue touched her thigh, and a shudder ripped through her. “I’m not sure my legs can—”
He stroked his tongue across her skin, and she gasped, aching and hollow, wanting and needing more. He met her gaze across the trembling expanse of her body. “Support you?”
He reached around and cupped her bottom, bracing her against the onslaught she craved, all the sensation in her body concentrated into the point where his tongue touched her skin. It was everything and not nearly enough as his mouth inched higher, closer, pushing her to the limit of her tolerance. Her body screamed for what he offered and withheld. His tongue on her, branding her with its fiery mark, was all that mattered. It was all that would ever matter.
Madness.
His tongue flicked across her quim, and the world as she knew it folded onto itself a million times over until it ceased to exist. All substance beneath her feet, at her back, above her head, became light and air and black and void all at once until it was only she and he at the center of the universe.
The nascent ache inside her sex became a full-on assault of greedy nerve endings as his tongue languorously stroked her before turning into butterfly flickers focused entirely on the one place she existed in the universe, stripped down to the essence of herself. “Jake,” her voice cried out on a note, low and primal. She didn’t recognize the sound as her own.
Her fingers wove through, then clutched at his hair, and her body tensed, suspended on the edge of a sensation that provoked, teased, taunted her . . . just out of reach . . . her sex swelling into a glorious blossom on the verge of effulgence.
All she needed was one . . . “Oh,” she moaned . . . two . . . “Please,” she begged . . . three . . . “More,” she demanded . . . flicks of his talented, capable tongue, and her back arched before her body shattered and she cried out. The universe reversed itself and unfolded, expanding to an infinity that stretched beyond her wildest imagining on a wave of pleasure that crested over and over again, transforming her into nothing more than a heap of tingly nerve endings.
His gaze caught hers from his place below and held as he rose to a stand, corded muscles flexing and releasing effortlessly. He angled his head forward, and her eyes drifted shut in pleasure when his mouth found the sensitive cup of her ear. “Lie back. I would see you better.”
Desire flared hotter as she stepped back and did as she was told. Skirts bunched above her waist, again her gaze found his. She felt no shame at this exposure, his eyes, nearly black with desire, taking in her bare legs, her bare sex. Hunger for more of him was all she felt.
Even after the universe had opened its secrets to her, she wanted more. And it was everything.
“You steal my breath away,” he said, his voice a ragged whisper.
A surge of womanly confidence buoying her, she came to her knees before him and loosened her bodice, shrugging it off until it lay draped loosely over her hips. His pupils dilated at the sight of her, spiking her desire higher.
She leaned forward, bringing her breasts into contact with the front of his shirt while her hands trailed lower until they arrived at the open fastenings of his trousers. His manhood strained in anticipation of her touch. “This,” she whispered as her fingertips glided across his pulsating member, “is what I really want.”
Her sex quivered with the want, the utter need, to take him inside her. Impatiently, she pressed her body into full contact with his. It mattered not that they were partially clothed, reduced as she was to this need to join their bodies.
With one hand she pulled him forward before pushing him back onto the bed, his body laid out for her like a feast. A feeling of power, heady and bright, overtook and guided her. She swung her legs around to straddle him, positioning herself above him, her fingers reaching down and encircling his long, hard shaft. A sharp hiss sounded through his teeth, ratcheting her desire higher, her gaze locked onto his, the tip of his swollen shaft poised, ready, at the opening of her sex. She’d never felt so empty in her life.
It was slowly and deliberately that she lowered herself onto him, inch by divine inch, until she held as much as she could take, but not all he had to offer. A moan ripped through her, and her eyes fluttered shut from the absolute hedonistic bliss of it. She might have stayed like this forever, luxuriating in the delicious pain of her body stretched to its limit, but he had other ideas.
His hands gripped her waist and began sliding her up and down his rigid length, releasing another wave of pleasure through her. Oh, the pleasure . . . it was endless. She felt limitless.
A rhythm to their motion established itself as their bodies moved in unified desire. The now familiar tension in her sex began winding tight, but this time she sensed the same tension coiling his body with every stroke and thrust. She glanced down to find his piercing eyes closed, his beautiful features taking on a quality of abandon, unexpected and strangely intimate. It did something to her insides completely at odds with the uncomplicated liaison she’d sought today.
She let the thought fly away as she closed her eyes and felt. Him. Inside her.
“I’m not sure how much longer . . .” his voice trailed off as he cupped her breasts and squeezed her puckered nipples between his fingertips. Her back and neck arched, pushing her breasts forward. Raw desire spiraling higher, his hands returned to her waist, and the easy slide became a demanding thrust.
A bead of sweat trickled between her breasts. The muscles of his stomach contracted into hard, defined segments when he lifted his head to catch the salty bead with his tongue on an upward thrust of his hips, his manhood encased to the hilt in her sex.
Again, she cried out. This time with more ferocity, their mutual need escalating. Her legs took over the hard, relentless rhythm. His hand cupped her bottom and stabilized the motion as greed for more, again overtook her.
“That’s it,” he said, his words a muttered staccato. “Oh, yes.”
Again, the glorious tension found and teased and licked at her until . . . until it had toyed with her enough and allowed her release, her sex a fluttery pulse around his hot, rigid shaft.
His fingers reached beneath her chin and tugged, a silent demand. His eyes locked onto hers, and she couldn’t look away. Even as he thrust inside her, the slick length of him sliding in and out, the most exquisite pain . . . the most exquisite pleasure . . . his gaze held her in its thrall.
His hands clutched her hips, and he flipped them around, reversing their positions, his body now atop hers. His eyes drifted shut as the thrust of his hips, the slide of his cock built, faster, harder toward—
His body tensed, his shout echoed through the room, and release caught him in its unrelenting teeth. At the very last moment, he pulled out of her and spent his seed onto the bed before collapsing beside her, the ragged in and out of uneven breath the only sound in the room.
Through the haze of enervation and satiety came the thought that she’d been a fool in coming here. She hadn’t extinguished the flame between them.
She’d only stoked it higher.
~ ~ ~
“Ahem,” Jake heard as if from a great distance.
His eyes creaked open to the sight of a woman’s unclad back. Olivia’s unclad back.
“If you will please secure my fastenings, I shall be on my way.”
He rolled onto his side and pushed himself up into a seated position, his hazy languor giving way to a feeling resembling alarm. He had no idea what to expect from her, but a presented back and a business-like tone wasn’t it.
Silently, he reached out and fastened her dress, resisting the impulse to feather his fingertips down her vulnerable spine, resisting the compulsion to influence her to lose that business-like tone. Recent dealings had shown him how.
Task complete, his rational mind asserted itself. “Why was it you came to my rooms?”
She emitted a short laugh. “For this.”
“For this?”
“Yes, for this.”
His mouth clamped shut in exasperated silence. The woman would explain herself sooner or later.
“I was hoping to speak to you today about arranging . . . this.” She stood and moved to the other side of the room where a small rock garden lay unaffected by their little drama. “To have this tension out from between us. To purge our systems of one another. Simple and uncomplicated.”
“And has it worked?” There was no help for the testy note in his voice. “Is the tension gone? Are our systems purged?” The words came out more demanding than he had a right to be, given the circumstances of their . . . tête-à-tête.
At last, she faced him. She looked vulnerable, spent, and at complete odds with herself. “Isn’t that the way of a fleeting affair?”
“Olivia,” he began, “this is no way to cope—”
“And you’re the expert on coping?” She glared at his bruised chest. “Is this how you’re coping with being a viscount? By allowing yourself to be beaten black and blue?”
“No, these”—He spread his arms wide—“have nothing to do being a viscount. As far as that goes, I find myself settling into the role.” He surprised himself with that last bit. It was true.
“Then why?” she whispered.
“You don’t know?”
“Perhaps.”
That single word confirmed it for him. He’d allowed himself to be pummeled black and blue for the same reason she’d splattered his face across her studio walls: it was his release . . . from her.
And they both knew it.
“Is it working?”
“No.” He paused. “Did this?”
“We shall see.”
He didn’t believe her. She didn’t believe her, either. Further, she was scared it hadn’t worked. He saw the fear in her eyes.
“Olivia, it doesn’t have to be like this.”
“You may want to resume calling me Lady Olivia. Decorum matters in our little world.”
“Lady Olivia, have you ever experienced a fleeting affair?” Silence stretched out between them as he slid off the bed and tied the lacings of his trousers. “What we just shared was simple and uncomplicated?” Disbelief sounded in his voice, and he wanted her to hear it. “And our systems are purged of one another?”
“You are, of course, not obligated to me in any way,” she stated, undeterred. “You are free to pursue a proper wife, and I am free to remain a scandalous divorcée. In fact”—She began sliding the fingers of one hand into gray kid gloves, one by one, methodically, determinedly—“we could keep doing this until—”
Alarmed, he sat forward. “That won’t work.”
Her gaze, cool, unaffected, met his. He could see her striving to place distance between them. “You’re a man of the world. Surely, as a sailor, you had a paramour in every port.”
“For us, Olivia,” he cut in before she could speak another word. “That won’t work for us.”
Her gaze refused to meet his as she began tugging a glove onto her other hand. In the space her silence created, he was afforded the distance to think and allow reason to assert itself. He must find a wife. To continue with Olivia in this manner wasn’t only unthinkable, it was ungentlemanly. He would arrange an outing with Miss Fox and wouldn’t beg off this time.
At the edge of his vision, he saw that Olivia . . . Lady Olivia had gone still. She stood in a posture both aloof and expectant, poised on the verge of flight. “I shall be on my way to fetch Lucy from school now.”
Without another word, she strode out of his bedroom, out of his mansion, and out of his life for all he knew, leaving him more alone than perhaps he’d ever been in his life.
A series of questions ran rapid-fire through his mind. What had he done? With Lady Olivia . . . Olivia? Had he just ruined his chance of finding the thief? Of finding a wife? Of securing Mina’s future?
He shot off the bed, his feet beating a resolute tattoo toward his dressing room. Another bout in Gentleman Jackson’s ring was in his very near future.
Within a thing of beauty could, indeed, lie the seeds of one’s undoing. In fact, that was where they would most likely lie.
~ ~ ~
Olivia sat perched on the carriage seat, her eyes squeezed shut, her thoughts running faster than she could catch them.
That won’t work for us.
For a moment, she hadn’t been able to breathe. Us. Two separate entities, combined, one.
She’d gone lightheaded. From lack of breath, surely, not from that word, the warm, seductive invitation of it. That word didn’t have to change anything. This tryst was a purely physical occurrence. She was the same person. She still had the same goals. What had been lurking between her and Lord St. Alban—Jake—was out in the open now. They could be free.
But, oh, this feeling knotting her insides didn’t feel like freedom. It wanted more. It wanted to become bound to a budding addiction. She could easily envision a future of enslaved dependence on that man, on what his body could provide hers. The thought caused the tender flesh of her sex to swell and ready itself for him again.
She bit back a groan borne of frustration and want. This must end here. She must envision a different future, the one she’d spent years cultivating, one of self-reliance. Never again would she open herself to the uncertainty and unpredictability of dependence on another for her happiness. The inevitable pain of disappointment and abandonment ran too deep. It wasn’t worth the pleasure.
Her racing pulse spoke a different truth. She would ignore it.
Eyes clenched tight, she fought for clarity. Her mind evoked the image of her white marble column. As she attempted to relax into it, she couldn’t. Something was amiss with her column. Usually, it stood tall and proud, unassailable. Today, it skewed ever so subtly to one side. Not enough to topple over, but . . . off. Try as she might, she couldn’t make it stand straight.
The carriage slowed to a full stop, and her eyes flew open. She’d arrived at Lucy’s school. Before she could compose herself, Lucy bounced into the carriage, her usual ebullient self.
“Hello, Mum.” Lucy leaned across the carriage floor for her customary kiss on the cheek. “Whoa, you smell like . . . like . . . like what?”
“Cloves?”
“Oh, yes, that’s it. How is that?”
“I’ve been out and about.”
Lucy accepted this and began recounting her day. Just as Olivia relaxed into the excitable rhythms of her daughter’s girlish voice, Lucy said, “Mum?”
“Yes?”
“You know who else smells like that?”
Olivia braced herself, her heartbeat doubling its rate, and shook her head.
“Miss Scace.”
Her breath released.
“You must bathe immediately when we arrive home. Immediately.”
Olivia looked through the carriage window at passing London streets. It had begun to drizzle. “I intend to, Lulu. I’ll wash off every last trace.”
Even as she spoke the words, she knew they were a lie, that a trace of him would always remain.
Had she truly rid her system of Lord St. Alban . . . Jake? Or had she set herself up for a lifetime of knowing just what she would be missing?